Antonio López: sixty years of artistic creation at La Pedrera
The art centre on Passeig de Gràcia brings together paintings, sculptures and drawings by the artist, a leading exponent of the Spanish realist movement.
If you've been on holiday or are working in Madrid this August and have passed by the popular Puerta del Sol, you may have come across a painter portraying this urban landscape with the utmost dedication and faithfully reproducing every detail of what he saw. It was Antonio López, a giant of artistic creation who, from the 22nd of September to the 14th of January, you can get to know much better at La Pedrera.
The Catalunya La Pedrera Foundation presents the first retrospective monographic exhibition dedicated to Antonio López, an artist born in Tomelloso (in Ciudad Real) in 1936 who began exhibiting in the late fifties. Everyone got to know him when, in 1990, a well-known film director, Víctor Erice, documented his creative process while painting a tree at his home. The film, The Quince Tree Sun, gave public dimension to a character who had already made a name for himself in the art world with his extremely realistic creations.
Perfectionist (it took him twenty years to paint the portrait of the royal family The family of Juan Carlos I), Antonio López worked for years on his pieces, in a long and slow process where reality is only the starting point and capturing the essence is the ultimate goal.
The Drents Museum (in Assen, in the Netherlands) has collaborated in the organisation of an exhibition that reviews the life and artistic career of Antonio López through about eighty paintings, but also with drawings and sculptural creations dating from the artist's youth (around 1950) to the present day.
Urban views (it is unknown which Gran Vía is more natural, the one in his paintings or the one in Madrid; in the image, a fragment of the work Gran Vía © Antonio López, VEGAP, Barcelona, 2023.), domestic interiors, landscapes, human figures... These are some of the themes of the artist's creations and the thematic blocks that the work that is part of the exhibition is organized.
The exhibition can be seen at La Pedrera and will be moved in January 2024 to Assen, to the aforementioned Drens Museum, which has been committed to presenting to the public of the Netherlands (where the artist is still little known) the creations of Antonio López, in an exhibition that promises to revolutionise the Dutch exhibition scene.
If you don't want to miss the retrospective exhibition dedicated to Antonio López, come to La Pedrera, but before you do, check all the information on their website.